AS HE neared the house, down the quiet autumnal streets of Holland Park in west London, Commander Adam Dalgliesh felt a shiver of apprehension. It was the same slightly nervous curiosity he experienced when entering a country church, pushing at the heavy door to find darkness, sweet with incense, that filled nave and chancel but also held, at its heart, a mystery. That was, he knew, an analogy his creator P.D. James would relish.

The season was her favourite, when the light faded early and council leaf-carts lurked like tumbrels in the parks between the borders of brown, withered plants. Her Regency house stood white and elegant among the almost leafless trees. He rang the bell, noticing as he did so that every lower window was criss-crossed with a metal grille. This world-famous author of 18 murder mysteries evidently feared for her own security. The warmth of her welcome, too, was preceded by the sound of a key turning several times in the lock.

Greetings exchanged, she led him to the drawing room for tea and shortbread. The room was as elegant as the house, white woodwork contrasting with sage-green walls and comfortably upholstered chairs in a William Morris pattern. Framed photographs showed her with George and Barbara Bush and in her ermine-trimmed robes at the House of Lords, where since 1991 she was an energetic member. A walnut cabinet housed her collection of Staffordshire figures, and one bookcase held a complete set of "Notable British Trials". He looked for the first editions of Jane Austen, her favourite author, whose work she had happily imitated in 2011 in "Death Comes to Pemberley". But then he turned his detective's attention to the woman herself.

She sat upright, small and spry, with no need for the stick that rested by her side. Her hands, folded in her lap, were strongly veined, almost tough. An Indian silk scarf was carefully draped around a scrawny neck. She wore a heavy pendant and a large ring, each of which appeared to be a Victorian memento mori. From beneath her silver hair she gazed at him with an expression that combined intelligence, good humour and, vitally, detachment. These were eyes that could look unflinchingly on the corrugated pipes in a slit throat, on the gooseflesh of rigor mortis and on the strangely colourful coils and pouches pulled from the human abdomen during a post mortem. She had worked, after all, for some years in the forensics department at the Home Office. Long before that, too, she had been fascinated by death, looking for drowned corpses on the way to school and wondering whether Humpty Dumpty really fell, or was pushed. She had often noticed, as Dalgliesh had, an expression of faint surprise on the faces of the dead.

(CNN) -- Charles Barkley -- who once said he doesn't create controversies, he just brings them to our attention -- is at it again.

The basketball analyst for Turner Sports and former NBA great isn't backing away from comments he made on the radio recently that people who torched buildings in Ferguson are "scumbags" and some blacks degrade successful African-Americans too often as not black enough.

Barkley also agreed with the grand jury's decision not to indict former Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson, who is white, for fatally shooting an unarmed black teenager.

In an interview with CNN's Brooke Baldwin on Tuesday, Barkley repeatedly came back to one point: He doesn't believe that white cops are out to shoot black people because of racism.

I admire Charles Barkley for speaking out on this.

More at: http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/02/us/charles-barkley-on-race/index.html

A Tuesday rainstorm in southern California prompted mudslides, flash flooding, flight delays and evacuations in parts of the parched region In Camarillo Springs, northwest of Los Angeles, gushing water and muddy debris began pouring from adjacent hillsides before noon yesterday By Tuesday night, downtown Los Angeles had received 1.21 inches of rain, breaking a 1961 record for the day Flash flood warnings have been extended through Wednesday, as another wave of rain is expected to bring another 1-1.5inches to the coast and 2-2.5 inches in the mountain regions Drought-ridden southern California received a blessing of rain on Tuesday, but the sudden influx of precipitation also caused chaos with mudslides and flooding reported across the region, prompting evacuations and flight delays.

Flash flood warnings have been extended through Wednesday, as even more rain is expected with morning showers turning into heavier rainfall towards the afternoon and evening hours.

An additional 1-1.5 inches of rain on the coast and 2-2.5 inches of rain in the mountains is expected in this second wave, bringing the storm's rainfall to a total to six inches before finally tapering out Thursday morning.

Wednesday's rain is expected to hit hardest in the San Gabriel Valley and Mountainous northeast of Los Angeles, where there is also a chance of thunderstorms.

Don't worry about video-game systems, he said. If you want one, you'll get one, and a couple games. They're behind locked doors. Focus on what you really want and you'll get a free system when your carts are loaded.

They were off. For 80 seconds, children ages 8-16 from the Harris County Department of Family Protective Services tore through open aisles, pulled once-unthinkable items off shelves and kept racing in dreamland.

This is so very generous!

More at: http://blog.chron.com/ultimatetexans/2014/12/texans-andre-johnson-gives-away-16000-in-toys-at-annual-christmas-event/#28867101=0

Federal agents checked medical staff of the San Francisco 49ers, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Seattle Seahawks. The DEA checks were part of an investigation into former players' claims that NFL teams often gave painkillers. No arrests were made.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- With organic food growers reporting double-digit growth in U.S. sales each year, producers are challenging a proposed California pest-management program they say enshrines a pesticide-heavy approach for decades to come, including compulsory spraying of organic crops at the state's discretion.

Chief among the complaints of organic growers: The California Department of Food and Agriculture's pest-management plan says compulsory state pesticide spraying of organic crops would do no economic harm to organic producers, on the grounds that the growers could sell sprayed crops as non-organic instead.

"I would rather stop farming than have to be a conventional farmer. I think I am not alone in that," said Zea Sonnabend, a Watsonville organic apple-grower with California Certified Organic Farmers, one of more than 30 agriculture groups, environmental organizations and regional water agencies to file concerns about the agriculture department's pesticide provisions by an Oct. 31 state deadline.

At issue is a California organic agriculture industry that grew by 54 percent between 2009 and 2012. California leads the nation in organic sales, according to statistics tracked by University of California-Davis agriculture economist Karen Klonsky, who says the state is responsible for roughly one-third of a national organic industry. The U.S. Department of Agriculture puts the overall value of the U.S. organic sector at $35 billion.

The U.S. organic industry has seen a similar growth spurt nationally in the same time frame, and three out of four grocery stores in the country now carry at least some organic goods, according to the USDA. California's $43 billion agriculture industry is the largest in the country by revenue, so what happens here matters to consumers and to the agriculture industry nationwide.

For years, "Car Talk" has served as the Saturday-morning cartoons of my adult life. If I am home, I turn on the radio at ten, and I don't turn it off until I've wasted another hour listening to Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, and heard the complete list of fake staff members: Marge Inaverra, the bookkeeper; Pickup Andropov, the Russian chauffeur. If I am leaving on a trip, I time my departure so that I can listen in the car. Like Tom, the older of the Magliozzi brothers, who died this week at the age of seventy-seven, from complications of Alzheimer's disease, I like to drive with the windows open.

Click and Clack stopped making new shows a few years ago, but the best segments of old shows are still on the air, and "Car Talk" still sounds fresh to me. Maybe, like Tom, I have a touch of Alzheimer's. (Ray was the first to make a joke about how his brother really did not remember last week's puzzler.) I follow "Car Talk" on Facebook, where they post pictures of eccentric cars sent in by fans. I wish I had sent them my shot, taken in Howard Beach, of the car in the shape of an avocado before someone else did. There's also a funny-sign contest. I could have sent in "ASS COLLECTION," the segment of crawl on the L.E.D. sign outside an optical shop in Rockaway that you see only if you're stopped at the red light at exactly the right moment ("DESIGNER SUNGL ... ASS COLLECTION").

Legendary fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, who spent half a century putting high society in haute couture, has died. He was 82.

The man -- often described as the "sultan of suave" -- dressed every first lady since Jacqueline Kennedy. Among those whose glamor factor his dresses jazzed up: Oprah Winfrey, Anne Hathaway and, most recently, George Clooney's bride Amal Alamuddin.

"We will always remember him as the man who made women look and feel beautiful," former first lady Laura Bush said late Monday night. De la Renta designed the wedding dress for her daughter, Jenna.

The cause of his death, announced by close family friends and industry colleagues, was not immediately clear. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2006, but said last year he was "totally clean."

"The only realities in life are that you are born, and that you die," he told an audience at New York's 92Y "Fashion Talks" series in June 2013. "We always think we are going to live forever. The dying aspect we will never accept. The one thing about having this kind of warning is how you appreciate every single day of life."Photos: People we lost in 2014 Photos: People we lost in 20142006: Oscar de la Renta on his rootsOscar de la Renta: Dressing the stars Oscar de la Renta: Dressing the stars1997: De la Renta on Clinton's dress

And what a life he lived.

He was a kind, funny and generous man.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/20/living/oscar-de-la-renta-death/

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http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/312824_Oscar_de_la_Renta_legendary_fa#rssMon, 03 Nov 2014 15:15:02 PSTWorld NewsActor and film director Richard Attenborough has died five days short of his 91st birthdayFloral GiraffeDirect link to article... [littlegreenfootballs.com]

They don't make them like this anymore!(Yes, I know it's from the "Daily Fail")

Richard Attenborough, the British actor and film director, has died at the age of 90.

Lord Attenborough's son Michael confirmed that he died at lunchtime yesterday, just five days away from his 91st birthday.

He was one of Britain's leading actors, before becoming a highly successful director.

The director - hailed as 'a titan of British cinema' - appeared in films including Brighton Rock, World War Two thriller The Great Escape and later in dinosaur blockbuster Jurassic Park.

Prime Minister David Cameron said he 'was one of the greats of cinema'.

Others expressing their love for Lord Attenborough included Ben Kingsley, who shot to superstardom after his performance as Mahatma Gandhi, and fellow actor Sir Roger Moore, who said he was 'a wonderful and talented man'.

Further into the article it gets into SS7 queries & a bunch of the technological details. Intended for government use,poorly regulated, etc....

Makers of surveillance systems are offering governments across the world the ability to track the movements of almost anybody who carries a cellphone, whether they are blocks away or on another continent.

The technology works by exploiting an essential fact of all cellular networks: They must keep detailed, up-to-the-minute records on the locations of their customers to deliver calls and other services to them. Surveillance systems are secretly collecting these records to map people's travels over days, weeks or longer, according to company marketing documents and experts in surveillance technology.

The world's most powerful intelligence services, such as the National Security Agency and Britain's GCHQ, long have used cellphone data to track targets around the globe. But experts say these new systems allow less technically advanced governments to track people in any nation -- including the United States -- with relative ease and precision.

Users of such technology type a phone number into a computer portal, which then collects information from the location databases maintained by cellular carriers, company documents show. In this way, the surveillance system learns which cell tower a target is currently using, revealing his or her location to within a few blocks in an urban area or a few miles in a rural one.

more at : http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/for-sale-systems-that-can-secretly-track-where-cellphone-users-go-around-the-globe/2014/08/24/f0700e8a-f003-11e3-bf76-447a5df6411f_story.html

Iceland has issued a red alert to aviation after indications of a possible eruption under the country's biggest glacier, the Vattnajokull.

The Icelandic Met Office warned that a small eruption had taken place under the Dyngjujokull ice cap.Seismic activity is continuing at the Bardarbunga volcano, about 30km away.Airspace over the site has been closed, but all Icelandic airports currently remain open, authorities say. A Europe-wide alert has also been upgraded.

European air safety agency Eurocontrol said it would produce a forecast of likely ash behaviour every six hours.Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted in 2010, producing ash that severely disrupted air travel.The red alert is the highest warning on the country's five-point scale.Flooding threatThe Icelandic Met Office said a team of scientists was flying across the region on Saturday afternoon to monitor seismic activity."The eruption is considered a minor event at this point," police said in a statement."Because of pressure from the glacier cap, it is uncertain whether the eruption will stay sub-glacial or not."

more at: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28913165

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http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/310905_Iceland_volcano-_Eruption_unde#rssSat, 23 Aug 2014 19:56:48 PDTWorld NewsWhat's A Grand Jury? How Will It Work In The Ferguson Case?Floral GiraffeDirect link to article... [littlegreenfootballs.com]

Interesting read from ST. Louis Public Radio broadcast with a focus on the Brown/Wilson caseand some direct quotes from Missouri law professors. Links too!!! Includes a possible list of charges.

The purpose of a grand jury, in theory, is to protect citizens against unfair and unwarranted prosecutions by the government. In medieval England, it was viewed as a protection against the Crown. Colonists found the institution protected them against unfair English prosecutions and included the right to a grand jury in the Fifth Amendment.

But in practice, the prosecutor who runs the grand jury has a great deal of influence in orchestrating the outcome. A well-worn saying is that a prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.

The grand jury that was to begin hearing evidence in the shooting of Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson is a St. Louis County grand jury. St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch is in charge although his office has said that an assistant will actually be in the grand jury room.

Here's how the grand jury process works.How many citizens serve on a grand jury and how are they chosen?

Twelve citizens serve on Missouri grand juries. The presiding judge of the St. Louis County Circuit Court selects the grand jury from a randomly chosen master jury list. Peter Joy, a professor at Washington University Law School, said this "enables the presiding judge to ensure that the grand jury is representative of the community." The oath taken by the grand jurors require they promise not to be motivated by "any hatred, malice or ill will."

BOSTON -- Cybersecurity researcher Ruben Santamarta says he has figured out how to hack the satellite communications equipment on passenger jets through their WiFi and inflight entertainment systems - a claim that, if confirmed, could prompt a review of aircraft security.

Santamarta, a consultant with cybersecurity firm IOActive, is scheduled to lay out the technical details of his research at this week's Black Hat hacking conference in Las Vegas, an annual convention where thousands of hackers and security experts meet to discuss emerging cyber threats and improve security measures.

His presentation on Thursday on vulnerabilities in satellite communications systems used in aerospace and other industries is expected to be one of the most widely watched at the conference.

"These devices are wide open. The goal of this talk is to help change that situation," Santamarta, 32, told Reuters.

More at:http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2014/0805/Hacker-Airplane-satellite-communications-are-vulnerable?

Hurricane Iselle suddenly gained strength over the Pacific Ocean Monday, becoming a Category 4 hurricane with wind gusts reaching 140 mph, U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Meteorologists say the hurricane is headed straight for Hawaii, but is expected to weaken by the time it reaches the islands later this week.

"Iselle continues to intensify and has reached Category 4 strength," NHC forecasters reported. "Since Iselle has some characteristics of an annular hurricane, it is likely to change little in intensity during the next day or so, and even when it begins to weaken, the trend should be gradual."

Iselle is currently about 1,250 miles east of Hilo, Hawaii, moving west at 9 mph. The hurricane will reach the Big Island as soon as Thursday. Forecasters say Iselle's intensity will have diminished by then, becoming a tropical storm, but warn of possible flooding, mudslides and damaging wind gusts near the coasts.

"The 5-day forecast cone brings Iselle at tropical storm strength over or near the Big Island late Thursday night/early Friday morning though likely any affects would be felt on the Big Island beginning Thursday evening," forecasters said. "Long-range models continue to track Iselle toward the west-northwest, which could potentially impact the smaller islands too on Friday."

More at:http://www.ibtimes.com/hurricane-iselle-intensifies-category-4-closes-hawaii-1648202

A report by New York State, along with San Francisco and London, found that iPhone theft was dramatically decreased once kill-switch tech, which allows users to remotely lock phones and wipe devices of information, was implemented. Now Google and Microsoft are joining the kill switch movement.

Ever have your phone stolen? If so, it's likely you wished for a "kill switch," a button that would immediately disable your phone, rendering it useless to a thief and protecting your valuable data.

Good thing Google and Microsoft will now join Apple and others in including a kill switch function to their operating systems and phones, following a New York State report that indicated a kill switch cuts smart phone robberies by up to 40 percent in some cases. This follows legislation in Minnesota that mandates all smart phones must have a kill switch.

Smart phone robberies were at an all time high in 2013, according to data by the report, which was done by the New York State Attorney General's office, with consultations by the Offices of the San Francisco District Attorney and the Mayor of London. More than 3.1 million smart phones were stolen in 2013, nearly double the number stolen in 2012. The Federal Communications Commission estimates that one out of every three robberies includes a mobile devices. In addition, robberies have grown increasingly violent, in some cases even resulting in murders and assaults.

Bad news for chocolate lovers -- your favorite indulgence is about to get more expensive.

Hershey Co., the nation's leading candy producer, said Tuesday it is raising prices of chocolates such as Kisses, Reese's, Mounds bars and other candies by 8% to combat increasing food, utility and transportation costs.

The costs for cocoa, dairy and nuts have "increased meaningfully since the beginning of the year," said Michele Buck, president of Hershey's North America, explaining that prices of these commodities "have been volatile and remain at levels that are above historical averages."

Cocoa futures jumped to almost a three-year high this month because of increased demand and weather issues in major cocoa-producing countries.

Amazon has formally petitioned the FAA for permission to test its delivery drones near Seattle as part of its highly publicized push to airlift goods to people's homes in 30 minutes or less.

The controversial program called "Prime Air" is the brainchild of Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos and would use small, unmanned aircraft to zoom purchases to doorsteps. But the drive has generated bitter debate over safety and privacy issues.

The retail giant is currently conducting indoor drone tests. It wants to conduct outdoor runs in the Seattle area, where its research and development labs are located. The company is headquartered in Washington.

Zamperini, whose harrowing life story inspired the bestselling novel "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption," grew up in Torrance and was set to lead the iconic parade down Pasadena's Colorado Boulevard Jan. 1. He died Wednesday.

A standout track-and-field star at USC, Zamperini competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, where he was the top U.S. finisher in the 5,000-meter race.

He retired from running during World War II and joined the U.S. armed forces. While serving as a bombardier on a reconnaissance mission, his aircraft crashed into the Pacific Ocean. He survived 47 days on an inflatable raft in shark-infested waters until being captured by the Japanese.

Zamperini remained in captivity for two years, during which time he was tortured, and was eventually listed as being killed in action by the U.S. government.

Bobby Womack, who spanned the American soul music era, touring as a gospel singer in the 1950s, playing guitar in Sam Cooke's backup band in the early '60s, writing hit songs recorded by Wilson Pickett and the Rolling Stones and composing music that broke onto the pop charts, has died, a spokeswoman for his record label said on Friday night. He was 70.

Sonya Kolowrat, Mr. Womack's publicist at XL Recordings, said further details about the death were not immediately available.

Mr. Womack, nicknamed the Preacher for his authoritative, church-trained voice and the way he introduced songs with long discourses on life, never had the million-record success of contemporaries like Pickett, Marvin Gaye, Al Green and Otis Redding. His sandpaper vocal style made him more popular in England, where audiences revere what they consider authentic traditional American music, than in the United States.

But the pop stars of his time considered Mr. Womack royalty. His admirers included Keith Richards, Rod Stewart and Stevie Wonder, all of whom acknowledged their debt with guest performances on albums he made in his later years.

Stephanie Kwolek, the American chemist and inventor who has died aged 90, created the first in a family of synthetic polymers that would later be spun together into Kevlar - a lightweight fibre with myriad applications, most famously in the construction of bullet-proof vests.

In the early 1960s the chemical company DuPont was searching for a way to reinforce car tyres without the use of heavy steel belts. At the time there were predictions of an oil shortage, and researchers hoped that a new lightweight-yet-strong breed of tyre would result in more fuel-efficient cars. With a team of chemists called the Pioneering Research Laboratory, Stephanie Kwolek began experimenting on a group of long-chain molecules with a rigid rod-like structure, known as aromatic polyimides.

She discovered that under certain conditions, these polyimides would form liquid crystals in solution. Whereas most polymer solutions are thick, this one was fluid and turbid, almost as though it had been contaminated. The colleague in charge of the spinneret initially refused to operate it on the grounds that it might clog up his equipment. When they persevered, however, the resulting fibre was stiffer and stronger than anything the team had seen before. "That's when I said 'aha'", Stephanie Kwolek later recalled. "I knew then and there it was an important discovery."

Subsequent testing showed that the polymer, dubbed "Fibre B", was flame-resistant, about half as dense as fibreglass yet up to five times stronger by weight than steel. In 1971 DuPont patented Kevlar and began to search for possible applications. They came up with more than 200 uses, from reinforcing bicycles and hiking boots to creating spacecraft, bridges, army helmets - and body armour. The DuPont Kevlar Survivors Club, founded in 1987 by police officers who owe their lives to the Kevlar bullet-proof vest, currently has more than 3,100 members.

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the secretive agency that launches and runs the nation's spy satellite system, is looking at technology developed by the video game industry to help it improve how it gathers and analyzes intelligence data, according to a research proposal released Monday.

The NRO wants to tap into the video game industry's "innovative algorithms" and "enhanced visualization techniques," the proposal said.

The NRO works with the National Security Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to provide data to be analyzed to track weapons of mass destruction and potential terrorists, develop military target information, help with natural disaster assistance and support international peacekeeping and relief efforts.

The Director's Innovation Initiative, the agency says, is aimed at paying for research in collection, data processing, management and dissemination-enabling technologies. The various projects are expected to last no longer than nine months and cost no more than $450,000, NRO documents show.

An 8.0-magnitude earthquake was recorded in the Aleutian Arc of islands, sometimes called the Rat Islands, between Russia and Alaska at 4:53:10 p.m. EDT (11:53 a.m. local time) on Monday.

The quake created a tsunami warning for the coastal regions of Alaska from Nikolski to Attu.

What was originally a 7.1-magnitude earthquake was upgraded to 8.0. It seems to be too deep to pose a threat to Hawaii, according to the National Weather Service. The latest bulletin indicates that other areas of the U.S. and Canadian Pacific coasts would not be affected.

The alert says: "No tsunami threat exists for other coastal areas in the Pacific, although some other areas may experience small nondestructive sea-level changes lasting up to several hours."

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- A report that scientists are calling one of the most comprehensive studies of great white sharks finds that their numbers are surging in the ocean off the Eastern U.S. and Canada after decades of decline -- bad news if you're a seal, but something experts say shouldn't instill fear in beachgoers this summer.

The study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, published this month in the journal PLOS ONE, says the population of the notoriously elusive fish has climbed since about 2000 in the western North Atlantic.

The scientists behind the study attribute the resurgence to conservation efforts, such as a federal 1997 act that prevented hunting of great whites, and greater availability of prey. The species is listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

"The species appears to be recovering," says Cami McCandless, one of the authors. "This tells us the management tools appear to be working."